


which one of you did it

by cracktheglasses (cormallen)



Series: Short Prompt Fic! [10]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo as Claudia, Gen, Hux as I guess a Louis-Lestat fusion?, Snoke as some sort of Magnus master vampire, Vampire Armitage Hux, Vampires, vampire Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 10:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16890915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cormallen/pseuds/cracktheglasses
Summary: 2017 tumblr prompt fic - Ben as Claudia from IwtV for @youdidnotseeme forher lovely art of the same





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youdidnotseeme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youdidnotseeme/gifts).



Ben cries through the first few nights, or maybe weeks; Hux has lost all track of time with the great big blubbering sobs that echo through the house. The boy cries, and the sight of his own newly bloody tears makes him cry even harder, the red streaking his cheeks, flaking as it dries.

It’s a punishment. Snoke is punishing him, for all that he says the boy is important, his presence necessary. Hux pushes his knuckles into his temples, grinding hard into the thin skin; his head may not ache like a mortal’s, from lack of sleep, or too much wine, or some shift in the weather, but the noise is surely driving him mad.

The noise, and the very presence of the child in the next bedroom, with the thick velvet curtains drawn over the hastily boarded up windows. Ben pounds uselessly on the frames with his weak, small fists, and cries, and cries, and cries; Hux claps his hands over his ears, attempting to conjure up in his mind anything that may placate a small boy. Sweets. Toys. A book?

The child Ben has no more use for sweets, and never will again. He is far too young for the volumes of Gibbon in the library, and Hux owns no toys aside from the few porcelain figures he had once attempted to collect before he grew bored of it. From some deep memory, he dredges up an image of a small orange cat, her purr and the warm velvet curl of her in his lap a once familiar comfort.

He blinks, and the memory is gone. And there are no animals in the house, save perhaps for the few rats in the cellars, hardly acceptable substitutes.

The crying stops abruptly as he throws open the doors to the adjoining room; the boy is a cornered little beast, looking up at Hux from where he crouches on the floor.

“You matched. You and Millie,“ he says with a heavy sniff, and Hux feels a shiver crawl up his spine, leeching into the bones.

"What did you say?”

“Your hair. It looks just like her fur did. So bright,” the boy says, hiccuping wetly, his eyes dark and glossy in his rust-stained face. “I saw it.”

“You saw it. In my mind. Through the wall,” Hux contemplates aloud, as if he is explaining it to himself as much as to Ben.

The boy nods; a fat red droplet slides down his nose, hanging suspended from its crooked tip before it falls heavily into his collar.

“It hurts. If I look too far,” the boy says; his face scrunches up, and the tears come in full force once more. He is profoundly ugly when he cries, in the way most crying things are, heaving and shuddering, choking on his own breaths.

Hux sighs.

Snoke is punishing him. Perhaps punishing them both, though Hux is uncertain what he has done to deserve it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @youdidnotseeme, here's a bit more of that slightly cleaned up mess

The boy is not in the house. 

Doors slamming behind him, Hux tears through the rooms like a Fury, foyer to parlor, to the disused nursery upstairs. To the library with its dusty, untuned spinet, where Ben sits occasionally, picking and pounding at the keys. 

The boy is punishment enough when he is here. Snoke will show him real punishment if the boy is lost, the important, necessary boy, so important that he’s been foisted off on Hux only a few nights after he was turned.

And now he’s gone, and Hux must find him, or risk the full extent of Snoke’s ire.

It’s past midnight when Hux finally sets eyes on him, in the street, outside of a party winding down. Ben’s cheeks look almost pink in the lantern glow; he darts and weaves through the diminishing pour of the crowd, a lost little lamb, bleating for help. 

“Mother! Mother, where are you?”

Not bleating, then.

Hux is scant steps away, ready to grab for him, when the woman beats him to it, leaning down to pat Ben’s hair with bejeweled fingers. The boy looks up at her, guileless in his sweet little torn velvet jacket with dirtied lace trim, looks at her like she is the first kind thing to happen to him in ages, looks at her like he doesn’t see the papery, crinkled folds of skin at her neck, at the rouge caking into the corners of her too-dry mouth. A white line wobbles over her concave breast, where powder has collected, where the silk of her dress conceals the flagging beat of her heart, and Hux’s lip twitches, revealing the tips of his teeth.

He is hungry. Much like Ben must be, pulling at the woman’s sleeves, so many plaintive appeals spilling from the split cherry of his mouth.

When they get in the carriage, Hux vaults to the rooftops to follow, gives chase through the air until finally the horses spook and rear, suddenly directionless. Ben’s voice, bereft of any sweetness, edges into his skull, worms, insistent and sharp, behind his brow: _Help me_.

He lands heavily on the roof of the carriage, to find Ben sitting next to the driver's slumped, drained body, struggling to pull on the reins with clumsy, too-small fingers; he looks up at Hux, blood dripping down his chin, onto the velvet and lace, his fangs elongated and prominent in his tiny mouth. 

The sweet, heavy scent of blood is muggy all around him. Hux stares, transfixed, the carriage careening through the lane, until the boy snaps, “Well, help me, then! I can’t hold them!” and Hux springs into action, pushes the coachman down, gets in and pulls on the reigns, guides the horses to an uneasy stop on the roadside. He is ready to scream, to slap Ben’s plump little cheek, _what in blazes were you thinking, running off like that, you foolish child_ , but the boy just looks at him again, eyes like coals in his red-smeared face.

“She’s still in there. You can have her,” he says, licking up blood from his lip.

When Hux climbs into the back of the carriage, the woman is pressing herself into the corner, trembling and pale, weeping, clutching her bleeding arm to her bleeding chest above the embroidered, torn neckline of her gown.

It is a mercy to finish her, for both of them. He pulls her handkerchief from her sleeve and goes to Ben, dabs at his expectant face with the delicate cloth.

“You made a mess,” he says, no longer angry, but relieved, tired, and pleasantly full. And somehow, somewhere deep within his chest, where his heart won’t beat, almost strangely excited, because the boy, Ben, the weeping, miserable, wretched boy, did something absolutely unexpected, without anyone teaching him how to.

Perhaps. Perhaps there is something to what Snoke has said about him.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to,” Ben says, taking the handkerchief from him. “Will you show me how to do it better?”


End file.
